Court of Appeal Upholds Sealing of Papers in Investigation of Possible
Abuse by Priests

By
a MetNews Staff Writer

The
public has no right to access to proceedings related to the grand jury
investigation of allegations of sexual abuse by priests in the Roman Catholic
Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the Court of Appeal for this district ruled Friday.

Hearings
on motions to quash subpoenas duces tecum issued by the grand jury should be
closed to the public, and all related papers should remain sealed, to the
extent necessary to maintain grand jury secrecy, Presiding Justice Joan Dempsey
Klein wrote for Div. Three.

Nuss,
who was named as discovery referee after the Court of Appeal ruled last year
that the grand jury had the authority to issue the subpoenas, ruled in August
that all future pleadings, orders, and hearings involved in litigating motions
to quash filed by the archdiocese would be closed and sealed.

Klein,
writing for the Court of Appeal Friday, said the presumptive right of access to
judicial proceedings under the First Amendment does not extend to the grand jury.

The
U.S. Supreme Court, she explained, has based the presumptive right on the
“tradition of accessibility” to the courts and the “significant positive role”
that public access plays in the process. Neither of those bases applies to the
grand jury process, Klein declared, noting that grand jury proceedings are
traditionally closed and that “public access to grand jury proceedings would
hinder, rather than further, the efficient functioning of the proceedings.”

Several
California Supreme Court cases, she said, have reaffirmed grand jury secrecy,
upholding orders precluding public access to grand jury materials, allowing a
court to suppress the filing of a report containing improper matter, and
barring release of materials gathered during a completed grand jury
investigation that did not result in indictments.

“This
line of cases establishes that non-disclosure is the pre-eminent rule for California
grand jury proceedings, that public access is regulated by express statutory
authorization, and that even the inherent powers of a superior court
supervising a grand jury are severely restricted when the court seeks to
disclose grand jury materials,” the presiding justice wrote.

Similar
results have been reached in federal cases and in other states, Klein added,
endorsing the federal approach in which court proceedings ancillary to the
grand jury investigation, including motions to quash subpoenas, are initially
closed in order to avoid the possible release of grand jury matters.

On
remand, the jurist said, the burden will be on the newspapers to show that a
particular disclosure will not endanger the secrecy of the grand jury
proceeding.

Attorneys
who argued in the Court of Appeal were Kelli L. Sager of Davis Wright Tremaine
for the newspapers, Deputy District Attorney Brentford Ferreira for the
prosecution, Donald F. Woods of Hennigan, Bennett & Dorman for the
archdiocese, and Donald H. Steier of Guzin & Steier, representing the
individual priests.